AML / KYC policy

1. Why this policy exists

Criminals laundering money do not look for the most illegal-looking service; they look for the easiest onboarding. Identity verification and monitoring exist to make our platform a bad place to hide the proceeds of crime. Every requirement on this page traces back to that purpose, and to Canada's anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorist-financing framework, which applies to services like ours through the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, FINTRAC.

The same procedures also protect you directly. A verified account is harder to impersonate, harder to hijack and far easier to recover if you ever lose access. In day-to-day terms, KYC is why a fraudster who steals your password still cannot redirect your withdrawals to their own bank account.

2. What AML means here

Anti-money-laundering (AML) is the set of controls that detects and discourages the movement of illicit funds: customer due diligence, monitoring of transaction patterns, screening against sanctions lists, and reporting where the law requires it. On our side it is procedures, logs and training; on your side it is mostly invisible except at the moments that matter.

AML is not a one-time check at signup. Accounts are monitored on an ongoing basis, and a change in behaviour, a sudden jump in deposit sizes, rapid pass-through of funds, or new payout destinations, can trigger a fresh review even years after a flawless onboarding.

3. What KYC means here

Know Your Customer (KYC) is the identity side of the framework: confirming that you are who you say you are, that the funds you use are yours, and that the activity on the account matches your stated profile. It is the reason we ask for a government-issued photo ID before your first trade and before your first withdrawal.

KYC has a bad reputation because some services perform it carelessly, losing documents, stalling verifications for weeks or demanding reams of paperwork without explanation. Our commitment is the opposite: a documented list of accepted documents, stated timelines, and a human explanation whenever a check fails.

4. FINTRAC obligations and money services business rules

FINTRAC, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, is the federal body that sets and enforces AML obligations for reporting entities, including money services businesses (MSBs). Our procedures are built to comply with applicable Canadian requirements for client onboarding, identity verification, record keeping and reporting, and registration details under the MSB regime are confirmed with the relevant provider on request: DEMO-2026-001: fictional demonstration reference, with no regulatory validity covers our CIRO-side framework and a dedicated DEMO-2026-001: fictional demonstration reference, with no regulatory validity field is published once officially confirmed.

What this means for you concretely: certain records must be kept for defined periods, certain transactions must be reported to FINTRAC, and we are legally prohibited from telling you when such a report has been made. A request you never hear about is not a request that never happened.

5. Documents we accept

Primary identity documents: a valid Canadian passport, a provincial driver's licence, a permanent resident card, or a provincial photo ID card. For users outside Canada, a passport from your jurisdiction of residence. The document must be current, legible and show your full name and date of birth.

Supporting documents, requested when address or banking verification is needed: a utility bill or bank statement in your name dated within the last three months, or a void cheque or bank confirmation letter matching the account you intend to use for deposits and withdrawals. Screenshots of banking apps are not accepted; generate the PDF statement instead.

6. How verification works, step by step

Step one happens during registration: your name, email, phone number and country of residence are collected and screened against sanctions and politically exposed person lists. Step two, before your first deposit clears for trading, is document verification: you upload your ID, the document is checked for authenticity and the photo page is matched to a short liveliness check on your device camera.

Step three is banking verification for withdrawals: the destination account must carry your name. Withdrawals to accounts that do not match your verified identity are not processed; this single rule stops the majority of account-takeover losses before they start.

7. How long verification takes

A clean file verifies within one business day, and most finish within hours during Eastern Time business hours. Delays come almost always from document quality: glare on a photo ID, a cropped edge, an address document older than three months, or a mismatch between the name on the ID and the name on the account.

If a check fails, you receive the specific reason and the specific fix, never a silent rejection. If a file needs manual review by compliance, you are told that it is in review and given an estimate, rather than watching a status circle for a week.

8. Source of funds questions

For larger deposits we may ask about source of funds: where the money comes from, employment, sale of property, inheritance, savings, and, for very large amounts, evidence such as a statement or a sale document. The question is not suspicion; it is proportionality. The larger the flow, the more the file must support it.

These checks follow fixed thresholds and documented procedures, not the mood of an analyst. You will always know which threshold you crossed, because the request itself names it.

9. Ongoing monitoring

Monitoring continues for the life of the account. Deposit and withdrawal patterns are compared against your stated profile and against typologies of layering behaviour: rapid in-and-out movement, many small transfers just under thresholds, sudden use of new funding instruments, or activity inconsistent with your investment horizon.

Flags raised by monitoring are reviewed by a person before any action affects you. Where the review clears the activity, nothing changes on your side; where it does not, you hear from compliance directly with the question that needs answering.

10. Reporting obligations

Where the law requires it, suspicious transactions, certain large cash-equivalent transactions and prescribed cross-border movements are reported to FINTRAC. These reports are confidential by law, and tipping off a client about a report is itself an offence, so we will neither confirm nor deny one in any conversation.

Records supporting verification and transactions are retained for the periods Canadian rules prescribe, in encrypted storage, with access limited to compliance staff who need them.

11. What happens when verification fails

A failed verification pauses trading and withdrawals on the account; deposits already received are held, not confiscated, and are returned to their source if the file cannot be completed. You may re-submit documents twice; after a third failure the account is closed and the funds returned to their origin.

Deliberate submission of falsified documents ends the relationship immediately and may be reported. Honest mistakes, an expired ID, a missing signature line, are exactly that, and are fixed with a re-upload.

12. Your responsibilities as a user

Keep your own house in order: use only accounts and cards in your legal name, keep your contact details current so compliance can reach you, and tell us promptly if your circumstances change in ways that affect your profile. Do not lend your account to anyone, do not accept third-party funds "just to pass through", and do not share your verification documents outside the platform.

These duties protect you as much as the platform. The most common horror stories in this industry begin with a user breaking one of these rules to help a "friend" or a "broker" who contacted them privately.

13. How your documents are protected

Verification documents are stored encrypted, access-logged and visible only to compliance roles that require them for a specific task. They are never attached to marketing profiles, never sold, and never shared with parties outside the legal framework that obliges us to collect them. The full data lifecycle is described in our Privacy Policy.

14. Sanctions and restricted jurisdictions

Applicants from jurisdictions under Canadian sanctions, and individuals appearing on prescribed lists, are refused at onboarding. Accounts that later come into scope, through a list update or a change in your declared residence, are suspended pending review rather than closed silently.

15. Questions and contact

Anything unclear on this page can be asked directly: write to [email protected] with KYC in the subject line for verification questions, or AML for policy questions. Compliance answers in writing, in English or French, within one business day.